TEHRAN, Dec 12 (AFP) - Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
on Monday stood by his latest controversial attack against Israel and boldly
asserted the world was "on the verge of change".

The outspoken president said Western powers "know that any change in Palestine
will change the world's political, economic and cultural arrangement, and therefore
they support the Zionist regime's most wicked deeds."

"The world is on the verge of change, and more than before we can hear
the sound of this present unstable order breaking down," the student news
agency ISNA quoted him as telling a conference entitled "Supporting the
Islamic Revolution of Palestine".

If the massacre of the Jews in Europe is true and used as an excuse to support
Zionists, why should the Palestinians pay the price?" he added, repeating
a comment that has widely been interpreted as support for deniers of the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad, who in October said arch-enemy Israel should be "wiped off
the map", said last last week that if Germany and Austria believed Jews
were massacred during World War II, a state of Israel should be established
on their soil.

His comments again drew widespread international condemnation, and the UN Security
Council also issued a statement to "condemn the remarks about Israel and
the denial of the Holocaust attributed to Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

But Ahmadinejad said "Western policy in regards to Palestine has always
been in favour of the Zionist regime and harmed the Islamic world, and they
cannot be the mediators and judges on the issue."

"All Islamic countries must strive to change the Islamic world's stance
after 60 or 70 years in a passive state," he said.

Elected on an platform of restoring the "purity" of the Islamic revolution,
Ahmadinejad's hardline stance has already worried European countries seeking
to strike a deal over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme.

Despite its fiery rhetoric, the Iranian regime says its nuclear programme is
merely designed to meet domestic energy needs.